Colorado Wildfire Keeps Tourists Away in State’s Busiest Season

By Jennifer Oldham -
Jun 19, 2012

A wildfire in the Colorado mountains
that’s consumed an area bigger than Washington, D.C., is causing
visitors to shy away from the state during what officials hoped
would be a record-breaking summer for tourism.

Ranch operators, fishing guides and river rafting companies
said smoke and road closures from the so-called High Park Fire,
blamed for one death and the destruction of at least 181 homes
in Larimer County after a lightning strike June 9, are causing
cancellations during their busiest time of year.

“It’s definitely affecting business, there’s no doubt
about it,” said Orin Carney, owner of Bighorn Cabins, whose 10
rentals are about eight miles (13 kilometers) from the fire.
“Most people don’t want to know if they should come to the
area, they want to know if they can get a refund on their
deposit. They are scared to death to come up here.”

Carney, who said his prime season is May through October,
said he’s lost thousands of dollars in reservations. It’s very
difficult for his customers to access his cabins because many
roads in the area are closed, he said.

The fire, about 80 miles (129 kilometers) north of Denver,
is affecting tourism primarily near Fort Collins and hasn’t
rippled through to attractions such as Aspen and Glenwood
Springs in the western half of the state, Vail in the central
mountains, or Durango to the southwest, business leaders said.

Temperatures in the 90s Fahrenheit (32 Celsius) and winds
as strong as 50 miles per hour (80 kilometers per hour)
accelerated the flames through dense stands of trees killed by
the mountain pine beetle, the U.S. Forest Service said. About
1,750 people were fighting the blaze, which covered about 90
square miles and was about 50 percent contained at 8 p.m. local
time, according to the forest service.

Whitewater Rafters

The Poudre River, popular with whitewater rafters, was
inaccessible because of the fire, requiring A Wanderlust
Adventure to cancel all trips for the last 10 days -- the first
time the company’s been shut down that long in the 20 years that
Bob Klien’s run the business.

“Normally, we’re booked up at this time,” Klein said.
“We can take 120 people a day. The canyon is closed to all
outfitters right now -- we’re in a holding pattern.”

The High Park Fire, about 15 miles west of Fort Collins,
home to Colorado State University and a hub for the state’s
craft beer brewers, isn’t expected to affect a festival that may
draw as many as 20,000 ale drinkers to the college town this
weekend to sample 70 beers.

’Calling Ahead’

“We have had people calling ahead to verify there aren’t
negative impacts,” said Peggy Lyle, event director for Fort
Collins’s Downtown Business Association. “We’ve been able to
calm their fears that the festival won’t be postponed or
affected in any way.”

In Estes Park, 43 miles southwest of Fort Collins, tourism
officials said misperceptions about the fire’s location are
causing hotels and recreation outfitters along the Rocky
Mountains to lose business.

“We can see the plumes of smoke that go up when the fire
hits a big patch of beetle-kill, but it’s not affecting us,”
said Suzy Blackhurst, communications manager for the Estes Park
Convention & Visitors Bureau.

“There have been a significant number of people who have
called to find out whether or not the fire is impacting the air
quality,” she said. “Quite frankly, we’re not seeing any
impact at all here, we have beautiful blue skies.”

Summer in Estes Park -- home to the Rocky Mountain National
Park, with expansive views of the mountains from Trail Ridge
Road -- is the busiest time of the year for tourism.

Campfire Smell

In Denver, although the air smelled of a campfire for
several days since the fire started, officials said city events
weren’t affected.

“The seven counties of Metro Denver are the size of
Connecticut,” said Rich Grant, a spokesman for Visit Denver,
the city’s convention and visitor’s bureau. “The fire’s not in
one of those seven counties. It’s hard for people to grasp how
big the West is.”

The fire hasn’t impeded routes to a majority of the state’s
popular summer getaways, which log 62 percent of their tourism
spending in the summer, said Al White, director of the Colorado
Tourism Office.

“People at this time are not being deterred,” he said.
“We have 23 million acres of public lands and at 58,000 acres,
the High Park Fire is a really small percentage of those public
lands.”

Colorado’s tourism industry enjoyed a record year in 2010,
the latest year figures are available, charting 55.1 million
visitors and $14.6 billion in revenue, White said. Officials
expect 2011 also broke records with more than $15 billion in
revenue.

“People in the tourism industry are anticipating this has
the potential of being a record-breaking summer in terms of
dollars and visitors,” White said. “You never can predict what
will happen. It’s still hot and dry in most of the state -- so
we’ll see.”